


Dance For the Two of Us

by melchixr



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Depression, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mild Gore, Self-Harm, Suicide, lmao im s o r r y, melchior survives but Moritz kills himself, moritz accidentally shoots melchior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 22:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melchixr/pseuds/melchixr
Summary: Melchior, although pained and exhausted, managed to look at Moritz dead in the eyes with a firmness uncharacteristic of an almost-corpse. It seemed as though nothing else in the world would ever be as forceful or meaningful as this; Moritz listened.“Don’t you dare shoot yourself.”“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”(Co-written with megan @jackphillips on tumblr)





	

It wasn’t just an ordinary forest. Ordinary forests don’t contain guns, or sad boys holding guns, especially sad boys holding guns who expect - as one would - to be alone. Somehow, everything seemed less than normal when there was a fifteen year old stood in the middle of a clearing - a circle of wild mushrooms that could be considered made by fairies if he believed in anything beyond the here and now - in the ghostly gentleness that comes in the aftermath of crying. He wasn’t crying any more, he was spent in tears and emotion, and the wind seemed oppressive in its cold heat, containing him within the circle and himself, as if nothing else in the entire world existed.

 

Of course, other things obviously existed. Trees; thick, dark masses of them, the only spectators to the circus show of the boy with the gun. And the moon, lonely in its pale milk-light, watching over like an uninterested god waiting for another to join the circle of angels singing a sad requiem. Only the boy, the gun, the wind, and the aftermath stood witness to this.

 

And god said,  _ “let there be light” _ , and there wasn’t.

 

And god said,  _ “let there be another” _ , and there was.

 

_ If a boy shoots himself in the forest, and there’s nobody around to hear it, did he really die? _

  
\---  
  


He had checked almost every barn and field across their whole town. He had knocked on every window of everyone who he thought might have any idea who Moritz is. But every reply was the same. 

 

‘I saw him at school on Friday’

 

‘I haven’t seen him tonight’

 

‘I have no idea’

 

He found that the best option was to look for himself, wandering down the same dirt paths he would play on as a child. He remembered rendering sticks as swords and bark as bullets on long walks with the pack of boys he called his own.

 

But now, it was he and Moritz against the rest of the world. That is, if he could find Moritz. 

 

Maybe he got on that old raft they made all those years ago and floated downstream. Maybe he got lost in his thoughts while on an evening walk. Maybe he was just around the corner. 

 

Which he was.

 

As Melchior entered the clearing, his eyes immediately fell to Moritz, kneeling there in the grass, dew drops glistening in the pale white moonlight. Also glistening and shining in the dark night, the shiny pistol in his grasp. After Melchior’s eyes glimpsed over Moritz’s deranged hair and pale, sullen, skin, his eyes locked on the shiny silver gun. 

 

For a moment, he could not move. All he could do was take in this view. This pretty boy with a shiny metal gun pressed firmly to the underside of his jaw.

 

It wasn’t until Melchior heard the loud click of the gun cocking that he felt himself come back to life. He jumped from the tree line he was still standing behind, using his long legs to bound into the open space.

 

“Mo, what are you-” 

 

He saw Moritz jump, the shiny silver handgun leaving his grasp and watched it spin towards the ground. But barely a second later, he heard the deafening sound of the gun go off.

 

And the next thing he knew. His chest was torn between blistering pain and horrible numbness.

 

\---

 

Moritz had never shot himself before. He’d never even shot a gun before, and he didn’t know what to expect. There would be pain, of course, and he waited for it. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for pain; waited to die. But nothing hurt, he felt nothing. So tenderly, gingerly, he opened his eyes to see if he was in heaven, or hell on earth.

 

Perhaps, in another life, or another death, he would have seen a chorus of angels; god himself, greeting him as a lost soul and welcoming him to an afterlife away from earthly pains. But there were no angels here, no light; everything had been blinded by the gunfire - the eyes of the forest were scalded closed. Nobody wanted to look. And then, at the end of it all, there was Melchior.

 

Melchior, on the floor.

 

Melchior, bleeding.

 

Melchior,  _ dying. _

 

“Oh, god,” Moritz said, and ran to his best friend, “oh, dear god. What have I done?”

 

“Moritz,” Melchior managed to say, his chest rising and falling like an irregular drumbeat, echoing silence across the air and the night and the wind and the nothings.

 

“Melchior, I’m -” 

 

“Moritz, don’t do it.”

 

“I’m so sorry. I’m so -”

 

Melchior, although pained and exhausted, managed to look at Moritz dead in the eyes with a firmness uncharacteristic of an almost-corpse. It seemed as though nothing else in the world would ever be as forceful or meaningful as this; Moritz listened.

 

“Don’t you dare shoot yourself.”

 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

 

Moritz, torn in all ways by guilt and depression, raised the gun, not to his head, but to his chest. To live by Melchior’s side was an honour; to die by it was a necessity. And he didn’t deserve the quickness of a shot to the temple, or the mouth, or the underside of his jaw. He should die like his best friend. Melchior, who could have gone on to become great; who  _ was  _ great; who deserved a life longer than this.

 

“Moritz, wait!”

 

And then, the pain that he had been building up for months burst and shattered in his stomach. The world faded fast, like poison seeping slowly away from the world and into him. Every sadness of his life became one, and his only reprieve was to reach out his hand and hold onto Melchior, as he always had done since they were children. Since they played with broken bits of tree bark and pretended that they were holding guns - they weren’t in a Western any more. They weren’t ever going home again.

  
And then, as inexplicably as everything began fifteen years ago, everything just, for a moment, and then for forever, stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally posted on my tumblr @melchixr with my partner in crime megan @jackphillips.


End file.
